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good, and the services were very interesting | and profitable.

Pastor J. Blake has resigned the pastorate at Downham Road, Dalston, and accepted the pastorate of the Baptist Church, Beccles. Since he has been in Beccles the work of God has revived, the prayer

meetings are excellent, the congregations very large, and many are waiting to join the church. We wish our esteemed friend abundant success.

Baptisms at Metropolitan Tabernacle, by Mr. J. A. Spurgeon:-June 26th, sixteen; June 29th, twelve.

Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Statement of Receipts from June 20th, 1871, to July 19th, 1871.

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Stockwell Orphanage.

Statement of Receipts from June 20th, to July 19th, 1871.

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Presents for the Orphanage.-One Van of Firewood, A Friend; Two Hundred Bricks, Mr. Murrell; A Set of Fixtures for the Surgery in the New Infirmary, Mr. Hill; Eighty Shirts, The Misses Dransfield; Ten Sacks of Potatoes and Five Dozen Cabbages, Mr. Woodnutt; One Box of Eggs, Mr. Potier; A Parcel of Socks, etc., from the Whytes Causeway Week Evening School, Kirkcaldy.

Golden Lane Mission.

Mr. W. J. Orsman, 153, Downham Road, London, thankfully acknowledges the following donations received from March to July 20th:

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Subscriptions will be thankfully received by C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. Should any sum be unacknowledged in this list, friends are requested to write at once to Mr. Spurgeon. Post-Office Orders should be made payable at the Chief Office, London, to C. H. Spurgeon.

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HO through faith obtained promises." Such was the apostle's assertion; and his day did not close the long list of saints, faithful and true, who took God at his word, and gained glorious though noiseless victories by clinging to the covenant of truth, which cannot be broken. Among the poor and hidden ones of earth, these grand witnesses to God's faithfulness have often dwelt apart. Now and then one shines out in public life to make the world wonder and ask, as of old they did, about the Master, "Whence hath this man these things?" The following pages contain a narrative of facts, which to some may seem too strange, and to others too insignificant, to be worthy of record. But to such as believe that God takes the truth concealed from the wise of this world, and reveals it to babes and simple folk, the story will bring a message of encouragement and good cheer.

Only a few years ago there lived in a remote village in the south of Germany a humble and devoted woman, the whole course of whose history bore thrilling testimony to the might which still clings to living faith. In order to trace the motive power of her life to its source, we must, after the fashion of German biographers, wander back among the chronicles of her family.

About one hundred years ago, any one chancing to find himself upon the dusty high road between the villages of Kornwestheim and Neünchingen, in the early afternoon of a summer Sabbath, would have come upen a large concourse of country people, briskly trudging along in the hot sunshine; youths and maidens, old men and staid peasant matrons -in fact, a walking congregation-and in their midst an earnest, holy messenger of Christ, who was their pastor. After attending morning worship, and the subsequent catechistical service, in their own village, these hard-featured sons and daughters of toil would cheerfully set out in the wake of their valued minister, to go and listen to his sermon in the far-off parish church of his father-in-law, Flattich, a distance of several miles. The congregation at Neiinchingen had meanwhile assembled, and often sang through several of the heart-stirring German chorals while awaiting their favourite preacher.

This pastor Hahn is described to us as a man of great devotion and power, exerting a remarkable influence both in and out of the pulpit. It was not his clear and well-developed method of thought, nor the gift of eloquence, although he possessed this in a marked degree, that made the common people throng after him and listen so gladly and intently to the word of life from his lips. A dignified appearance, added to these talents, no doubt gave weight to his discourse; but that which made him mighty to sound forth the love and glory of our Lord and of his Christ, was the grace of the Holy Spirit, "the author and giver of life." "As he stood before us," said a competent judge, in later years to his grandson, " his face almost transfigured with its expression of high, unearthly light, we no longer felt as if listening to a nere man. Our hearts heard the voice of one whom God had entrusted with a message straight from his own presence." Great was the joy spread abroad in a place when the news reached it that Pastor Hahn was coming to preach. The tidings travelled like wildfire, and everyone crowded to listen and share the blessing.

It was the influence of men such as this, that effectually counteracted the flood of Rationalistic free thinking, which threatened to destroy the spiritual life of Germany in the last century.

This is the account which reaches us of the father of Beaté Paulus, a woman who proved not unworthy of her saintly parentage. The holy reverence in which she held his memory may be gathered from an oftrepeated saying of her own children, when they noticed the eager delight with which, on a free Sunday hour, she pored over the rich legacy of Hahn's manuscript sermons. "Mother," the little ones would naively exclaim, "the first seat in your heart is the dear Saviour's, but the very next is kept for your blessed father!"

It is one of these children who, in graphic language, gives us the details of his mother's bright career; and as far as may be, we will adhere to the words in which he tells them.*

*It may be well to anticipate the surprise that some portions of the story may elicit from English readers, by reminding them of the almost patriarchal simplicity and primitive manners of the country of which Madame Paulus was a native. [Wülttemberg, a small kingdom in South Germany.] The position of woman there differs widely from that which she occupies with us, while, at the same time, it is quite usual to find high intellectual culture co-existing with modes of life which to us seem almost uncivilised in their severe hardihood.

CHAPTER I.-THE PARENTS.

It would hardly be easy to find a married pair differing so widely from each other as did our father and mother. The latter, being a daughter and granddaughter of men alike noted for piety and originality of mind, felt at home in a sphere of thought, dealing with subjects of revealed truth, and a higher life of communion with God, together with the practice of Christian charity. My father, on the other hand, belonged to a family some of whose members had attained to worldly distinction, one of them being a noted Rationalist, hence his interest lay chiefly in intellectual and scientific research, and the enjoyment of social intercourse. Notwithstanding this marked dissimilarity, our parents were united in hearty affection, and mutual admiration and respect characterised their relations. Although differing from the views held by his wife, our father regarded her convictions as sacred, and venerated in her a high spiritual life in which he was not a sharer. Thus, as a child I remember his calling me to a window to witness two pious clergymen approaching our parsonage. "Look, little Philip," said he," there are two servants of God." When, in the course of subsequent conversation, they asked him whether any pietists lived in the parish; "Certainly, and not a few," was his prompt reply. Surprised, they enquired the number. "Thirty," he said; and noticing their wondering looks, added playfully, "Well, you see, there is my wife, who counts for twenty-four in her own person, and six other women hold with her heart and soul!"

For ten years our parents had thus lived very happily together, and were now located at Ostelsheim, a village near Caln, in the Black Forest, where my father's genial temper, united with his wife's lovingkindness, had won the hearts of the simple peasants around them. The exceptionally fine vintage of the year 1811 had filled our country with rejoicings, and it was in the midst of this pleasant excitement that our mother sickened, and was soon prostrated by nervous fever. In the middle of one night our father hurriedly sent for his brother, a physician in practice at Stuttgart; for our village doctor began to despair of coping with the disease. Our uncle came in haste, bringing with him a female cousin, who found plenty of work in nursing, and the care of six small children under the age of ten. No one besides was in the house except our old grandmother, and the offers of help made by kind but inexperienced neighbours availed little. Uncle Carl startled our poor father terribly by declaring that recovery would be possible only in one such case out of a hundred; and consternation spread through the village with the sad tidings of our impending loss, for her constant sympathy and kindness had endeared the sufferer to a surprising extent. Our grandmother alone remained calm and collected amid the general lamentation. For long ago she had passed through God's school of sorrow, in the early death of her husband and three highly talented children, just reaching maturity. Under such circumstances she had learned to sacrifice her own will to one higher and divine.

The illness had now lasted for a week, and we were anxiously awaiting the crisis. Vainly the little children gathered round the sick bed, entreating their mother in imploring tones not to go away and leave

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